~ Day by day with RA …

Crickets Without Legs

It seems that recently I keep running into situations where people, that even when given appropriate amount of input, come to distinctly incorrect conclusions. (Hopefully my doctors will be immune from this apparent epidemic.) Rather than get discouraged, I think back to the following anecdote first told to me by my friend Pat an eon ago. It helps me keep my sanity (and my cool).

A researcher was studying crickets.

One day she took a cricket and put it in a large box. She clapped her hands and the cricket jumped.

She then took the cricket out of the box, pulled off one of its legs, and placed the cricket back in the box. When she clapped, the cricket jumped, although not quite as high as the first time when the cricket had all its legs.

She repeated the process a second time; a third time; a fourth time; and a fifth time — until the cricket only had one leg attached. Each time the researcher clapped her hands, the startled cricket would jump.

Finally, the researcher removed the cricket’s last leg. She placed the cricket back in the box and clapped her hands. However, the cricket failed to jump. She clapped again. The cricket remained still. She clapped a third time and still no response from the cricket.